Space
Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) met its goal of having its first Falcon 9
rocket in place and fully integrated at Florida?s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
by the end of 2008.

The
Hawthorne, Calif.-based company mated the rocket's 17-foot (5.2-meter) payload
fairing to the Falcon 9 first stage by Dec. 30, completing integration a day
earlier than planned.

"With
Falcon 9 integrated, our focus shifts to the big launch mount and
erector," SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk wrote in his final update of
2008. "All the pieces have been delivered, and the coming days will see a
tremendous amount of welding to join them all together."

Once the launch
mount and erector are complete, Musk said, Falcon 9 will be transferred to the
erector and raised vertical early this year.

The medium-lift
Falcon 9 rocket is a two-stage booster designed to launch SpaceX?s
Dragon spacecraft and other payloads from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station?s Space Launch Complex 40 launching pad. When hoisted into vertical
launch position, the rocket will stand 180 feet (54.9 meters) tall and measures
about 12 feet (3.6 meters) wide up to its larger diameter payload fairing.

SpaceX has
five Falcon 9 launches on its manifest for 2009, including a maiden flight
sponsored by a U.S. government customer that the company will not name and two
demonstration flights under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
program. The demo flights are intended to prove that SpaceX is ready to begin
making regular cargo runs to the International Space Station under a $1.6
billion contract NASA
awarded the company on Dec. 23.

SpaceX achieved
its first
launch success in September 2007 using its smaller Falcon 1 rocket after
three failed attempts.